"This post has been removed...''
Civility is a pipe dream. I understand that. This is the blogosphere, the modern-day Wild West. Six shooters going off all over Dodge City and stuff.
Fine.
Personal insults are the coin of the realm among some, and that's just the way it is. It's a free country.
The anonymous are free here to personally insult me:
"Your're ugly and your mother dresses you funny" is fine. Hey, it's an arguable point.
"Your theology is not my idea of sound Christian doctrine." OK, that's the basis for debate.
But there's a kind of personal attack that goes beyond nasty and gets, for want of a better word, creepy.
The stalkerish kind of creepy. Where I live or don't live, who I make eye contact with in the hallways -- that's just nutsy cuckoo kind of stuff and believe me, blog administrators will be deleting those.
By the way, my trip to Maine was swell and Thanksgiving in South Jersey was a treat. How's by you?
Fine.
Personal insults are the coin of the realm among some, and that's just the way it is. It's a free country.
The anonymous are free here to personally insult me:
"Your're ugly and your mother dresses you funny" is fine. Hey, it's an arguable point.
"Your theology is not my idea of sound Christian doctrine." OK, that's the basis for debate.
But there's a kind of personal attack that goes beyond nasty and gets, for want of a better word, creepy.
The stalkerish kind of creepy. Where I live or don't live, who I make eye contact with in the hallways -- that's just nutsy cuckoo kind of stuff and believe me, blog administrators will be deleting those.
By the way, my trip to Maine was swell and Thanksgiving in South Jersey was a treat. How's by you?
posted by Michael Riley at 1:25 PM
22 Comments:
Why was the post made under your "The Problem With Atheists" thread deleted when all that post did was suggest that you were a poor writer for starting a blog about atheists only to run off on a tangent about what you were currently reading and what your thoughts are about a particular author? Is suggesting that you suck as a writer fair game on this blog site?
Riley wrote:
"But there's a kind of personal attack that goes beyond nasty and gets, for want of a better word, creepy. The stalkerish kind of creepy. Where I live or don't live, who I make eye contact with in the hallways -- that's just nutsy cuckoo kind of stuff and believe me, blog administrators will be deleting those."
On November 10, 2007 at 10:20 PM ("Love is blind..." thread), Chris Riley wrote:
"I think my address is listed, dollface."
Maybe you ought to start preaching to the choir, Reverend Riley.
Reverend Riley, would these blog administrators of which you speak also be employed by the very same newspaper, The Asbury Park Press, that makes, among other information, property tax records and the salaries of all government employees available on the Data Universe feature of their web site?
The APP's Data Universe
Now we're cookin.'
Whether I suck as a writer is fair game, although not a very interesting one. But there was something else in there as I remember. Also, the problem with athiests is tied to the separation of church and state, so bringing in aside from Garry Wills was not so far out in left field.
Christopher was defending his mother's honor. And the post he was responding to wasn't deleted, either.
And is the third anonymous suggesting I reveal my salary and tax records? You first.
You even state in your bio for this blog that the only honest work you ever did was as a clam shucker in South Jersey. With your fabricated tales on this bog (Saving a drunk Irishman), may we suggest : start shuckin' pal.
This is unbelievable. This is a blog that we respond to, based on whatever Mike Riley writes. The personal attacks are completely unnecessary and childish.
I don't agree with everything the writer says, and I'll tell him, but we all need to tone it down.
I do not understand why this is turning into a personal vendetta. If you don't believe the Sunday morning story of the Catholic Irishman, then don't believe it. Fine. Move on. It's your opinion. But to attack the writer or his family or what you perceive to be a lack of...what...something (because there are so many gripes, I can't count) you best be moving on.
While it is fine to be anonymous and state your thoughts about something, it is NOT fine to intentionally hurt, ridicule, insinuate you know someone personally but don't have the fortitude to write your real name in the blog, so that at least the "accused" can know who is accusing. It is cowardice to do otherwise.
And to answer your question, Mr. Riley, our family had a quiet Thanksgiving with my Mom. The weather here was near 70 degrees, a perfect Thanksgiving day to be at the Macy's parade. (I went only once and it was freeeeezing!)
Riley wrote:
"And is the third anonymous suggesting I reveal my salary and tax records?"
Can you read, Reverend? No one is asking to see information about your salary or the taxes that you pay.
That said, it is both amusing and rather telling to see an Asbury Park Press employee whine -- unjustly in your case -- about potentially having his home address revealed on an APP web site. As was pointed out above, The Asbury Park Press profits by making available on this web site the home addresses of any homeowner and property tax payer in the state of New Jersey.
Now while that information was always a matter of public record, it used to take some work to obtain that information. (e.g., driving to the county Hall of Records and asking to see certain information) Thanks to the APP -- the very same folks that pay you, Reverend Riley -- that is no longer the case. Thanks to the APP's Data Universe feature, any New Jersey cop, judge, social worker, juror, teacher, corrections officer or rape victim (among others) that happens to own a home in NJ can now sleep peacefully at night knowing that any sociopath he or she has dealt with in their career can now obtain their home address with just a few keystrokes and a couple of clicks of the mouse. Moreover, they can obtain this information from the privacy of their own home, public library or Internet cafe, which means that the truly disturbed will be far more inclined to seek out this information in the first place. (I have to believe that a clerk in the tax office or the Board of Elections is going to remember someone asking to see where the Chief of Police lives.)
Tell us again, Reverend Riley, how the APP's blog administrators will be deleting posts that contain information about your home address. Tell us again, while you are cashing those APP paychecks, how revealing another's home address on a web site is tantamount to a "personal attack" or how it is "creepy," "nasty" or "stalkerish" for one to do just that. I am sure we can all use the laughs.
And for the record, if a post is ever made that does contain your home address, that post should be removed. I write not because I advocate making home addresses even more public than they already are, but rather to point out the hypocrisy of The Asbury Park Press.
Wow! How far this blogsite has digressed. I've been a reader only for awhile but had to respond to all this foolishness. Ray and Margaret have taken their fair (unfair)share of personal hits, too it seems from the ever-multiplying anonymous strain out there. Ray, Margaret and Mr. riley -I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Apparently some of these bloggers have no such lives and take it out on those who do.
You aren't fooling anyone, DG, much less the administrators that see your IP address and other information with each "anonymous" post that you make.
Nice to have yu back, dg.
You know, I HAVE spent too much time on this. 'Stalkerish' was a low blow, but has made me realize that this IS futile. Mr. Riley has not recognized the point was to show the 'Irish drunk' story had placed numerous doubts in minds of some readers. Hence comments will come how could that happen to him? Illustration of the characters involved will either support it on not. So instead we spin things towards the critic by making a personal attack the issue instead, and thereby loose the point.
A parable is meant to make a point, but does not need to be presented as historical fact. That is what disturbs me, that what is printed is too often accepted by readers as being true. And if this was true, so be it. But if not, don’t make sound as if it were. I don’t expect to convert the groupies, but I hope they can open the possibility that what they read may not always represent what the real world or the truth. So I’m done, and don’t expect to be back, lest we have the Press come after me for stalking.
Thanks, Mike. You made me realize that this was too big of an investment of my time. Enjoy you holiday.
BTW, Mike, look at all those comments and hits you get! Any chance of getting some ad space sold on the blog?
Thank you Margaret, sorry whichever Anonymous posted falsely again about me but I do not make anonymous comments, have always used dg.Once again,I will leave posting on this blog to others because I do not want to get caught up in all the childish remarks I have been reading past couple months and refuse to stoop to the mean anonymous(es) remarks by replying to them again. I will read for enjoyment only and will not reply like I have been doing past few months.I was only defending Mr. Riley and his blogsite because I have always enjoyed his writing here and in his articles in The Press the past few years. Take care everyone and whatever any of you believe, or do not believe hope we all have one thing in common: to help each other on a daily basis,especially those less fortunate than ourselves. No religion involved, just humanity. Happy Holidays or Happy Everything or Happy Nothing,whatever may apply to you.
Wow. Just, wow. Okay, I am a public employee, and while I am not thrilled that my salary is online for all to see, I can live with it, becasue YOU pay my salary. Mr. Riley works for a private enterprise, so he gets a pass. That's just the way it is. Also, a lot of info was freely available - for example, Ocean County addresses and real estate info has been available for free at:
http://www.ocnjtax.com/
Click on oc.taxrecords.com on the left.
This reminds me of growing up and reading the Observer as a kid. Every day on the front page they had this feature that just seems to sum up the general vibe in this particular corner on the world. Was it an inspirational quote? Something funny to start your day off with a chuckle? No, it was a "Pet Peeve". Every day they would print some petty annoyance submitted by some grouchy reader. Thanks, thanks a lot. Just what I needed! I'm not saying comments need to be a lovefest - that gets boring pretty quickly. But the personal attacks - they are boring, too. And generally depressing. Lighten up on the man. He writes a COLUMN - it's not supposed to be objective reportage. He's allowed to bend the literal truth a little, if he wants to, in order to illuminate a more profound and universal truth. That's why I read what he has to say. Why do you read what he has to say?
Is anyone else having trouble with posting now that there is a new set up? Just wondering.
I'm having trouble finding Mr. Riley's blog.
I haven't had any problems as of yet, Margaret. That said, the reason you might not be seeing your posts is because Riley, in true cowardly fashion, has opted under the new format to approve each blog entry before it is seen by others.
I am posting, but I don't see others' posts, and it does not lend itself to dialog anymore. I know Bob Ingle's is set up the way it had been before...
What gives?
I asked Bob Ingle about that and he told me that since his column and blog are syndicated, the format used on his blog site must remain the same. Ingle further said that eventually all of the Gannett papers that he writes for will adopt the new APP format. Until that happens however, Ingle's blog will continue to use the old format. Since Riley no longer writes for any paper other than The Asbury Park Press (The one other paper that he used to write for dropped him), Riley was required to adopt the new format used by the APP.
That said, and from appearances, Riley has used the new format as an excuse to squelch even the most minor criticism of what he writes. For example, his latest blog speaks about a movie that he recently saw. In his blog, Riley wrote that the movie he watched was a "Cohen brothers" film. I wrote a very brief comment in which I pointed out that it is "Coen" and not "Cohen." It goes without saying that Riley has not yet "approved" my post so that others can read what I wrote.
On a related note, if you, Margaret, have made posts to Riley's blog since the format change, I couldn't tell. The only reader posts I've seen on Riley's blog since the format change have come from myself, a woman that apparently attended Riley's high school reunion and Dave Williams, an APP employee and a self-professed atheist that likes to spend his free time on the Internet discussing religion and politics.
Thanks for sharing that, anonymous. I only posted once. Then I wrote to him - there's a "comment" button that I sent Mr. Riley a direct note stating that I didn't know I was doing something wrong in my attempt to post. I've checked under "messages" and I haven't seen a response from him.
So, I don't know. I think he's freaked out by the person or persons that wrote personal things about him, and I don't blame him.
You're welcome, Margaret. In all fairness to Riley, he did "publish" the remarks I made about the Coen brothers, albeit after I made the post above. He also sent me a message. (I was unaware that one could send or receive messages with the new format.) Anyway, I hope to see you back there. Have a Merry Christmas if I don't see you. -- NavesinkRiverPat
Riley doesn't like anything that is not in line with his image getting out. Henceforth, only those who he approves will have comments posted.
Freaked out or not, HE can publicly comment about whomever he wants to without concern, but if someone observes his behavior and comments on it, they are tagged as 'creepy'? He's a columnist, reporter and an author, so he falls into the public figure realm. Just as an 'unnamed inside source' is often used by the media when attributing information on other public figures, why can't an inside source (in HIS place of work) try to keep the media honest? Funny how the Press reacts when the shoe is on the other foot!!
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